LYNN, Mass. — Seventy years ago this week, a CIA paramilitary officer found himself strapped inside a C-47 aircraft over Manchuria on a top-secret mission when everything started to go wrong.
The CIA asset on the ground he was poised to extract had been turned by Chinese security forces. An anti-aircraft unit was moved to the rendezvous site with the intention of ambushing the American plane. At the moment of approach, there began a merciless barrage that assaulted the American aircraft. A gaggle of Chinese military personnel burst from the snowy woods. The plane's engines cut off, the aircraft skidded into a copse and broke in two. The two pilots were killed.
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